Dear April Fool’s Day: You Suck.

April 1, 2011

Listen. We hate to be the ones to say this…well, actually, we’re perfectly happy to be the ones to say this, because we’ve been thinking it all damn day. You suck. For people who work on the Internet, you suck especially. But also, you suck for everyone. In the dark days at the end of time, when we’re down to our last soy candle and recounting our favorite moments of human existence, no one will say, “Geez, you know what I’ll really miss? April Fool’s Day.”

This is in part because most April Fool’s jokes are dumb. April Fool’s Day is a day for sub-par humor, for amateurs to come out with their fake poop and whoopee cushions and har-har-har I’m engaged! I’m pregnant! You’re fired! I just ran over your dog with my car! jokes, and for the rest of us to sit back and grin and bear it, all the while thinking “Not funny, dude” — or to drink, or cry, or drink and cry, and wait out this vile day in which we must parse every press release, news item, tweet, post, and YouTube video with an even more cynical eye than ever (and that hurts, it does) to finally be over so we can go home and cry, and drink.

We got a press release, for example, for an upcoming new New York event comprising all of the great weeks that we New Yorkers have to celebrate. You know, “Fashion Week, Internet Week, Restaurant Week, Advertising Week, Wellness Week, National Pasta Week, Chili Cook Off Week, Pub Crawl Week and more.” All hail “the first-ever Weeks Week”! Hilarious.

Ryan Seacrest’s Twitter was taken over by the escaped-now-captured BronxZoosCobra. He’s talking about eating mice. Hilarious.

Syracuse University announced they’d be awarding Charlie Sheen an honorary degree for his recent accomplishments in the field of social media and communications. Hilarious.

See, an April Fool’s joke is based on the lowest common denominator of humor. It is like having Dad on speed-dial, when he’s in his most playful mood, wearing a fanny pack and Tevas with socks. It’s like sitting next to Carrot Top on a flight to Singapore, in economy. It’s like dreaming in America’s Funniest Home Videos, and then waking up and living them. On this day of all days, the stakes should be raised, and yet they are so low as to make the time your grandpa asked you to pull his finger seem like Emmy Award-winning comedy. Friends, this is not the day to try to see if you are funny. It is the day to shut it, get your work done, and go home.

In other words, April Fool’s Day is hell. Seriously, in hell, you will hear, over and over again, “APRIL FOOL’S!!!!!” Please, let it be over, so we can wake up on Monday and head to the conference room for a meeting in which we will announce to everyone that we are pregnant, and it will actually be funny because we’re not, and also because it’s not April Fool’s Day. Plan your schedules accordingly.